Originally posted by Gavinator68 I pose this to educate myself and others.....................I have been wondering just how deep MOST....... MUSICAL recordings go. Are we talking 15, 20, 30 , or 40Hz.

I know it is an offbeat inquiry but is there some kind of reference study or understanding.

Cheers,

David

I have a CD that contains 32Hz organ tones. That to me sounds VERY low, and I have never heard any other CD going so low. I don't listen to a lot of electronically generated music so I may miss a whole universe, but to me the target of output to 20Hz is quite adequate.

I have a CD that contains 32Hz organ tones. That to me sounds VERY low, and I have never heard any other CD going so low. I don't listen to a lot of electronically generated music so I may miss a whole universe, but to me the target of output to 20Hz is quite adequate.

Jan Didden

There are organs with 16 Hz pipes, so I would suppose modern recordings of such organs go low enough, that is, if there are microphones that can capture it.

Lowest I have is Pink Floyd's DSOTM: 25Hz, and a compilation of Bach organ recitals which is sub 20Hz.

LP rarely goes this low, and it can't (usually) do it in stereo otherwise the needle has a nasty habit of jumping out of the groove. Hense Massive Attack's last album was released on CD only, despite the rave reviews for their previous, vinyl offering. Bit of a moot point as nominally everything is omni-directional below circa 70Hz, but there you have it. Worse, below around 35-40Hz, most information (on vinyl) is often swamped by noise, warps etc. Subs (at the bottom end of their spectrum) and vinyl are not always a happy combination -it might sound quite impressive, and subjectively a lot of bass, but not a lot of it is actually what was recorded in the first place! In this respect at least, CD and other digital mediums have the advantage, assuming, of course, that you wish or need to go this low in the first place. Accoustic music, organ excepted, is limited to circa 40Hz, as is most rock actually, unless Rick Wakeman is in one of his more creative keyboard moments so a lower end of 30Hz is usually more than suficient.

Originally posted by janneman
I have a CD that contains 32Hz organ tones. That to me sounds VERY low, and I have never heard any other CD going so low. I don't listen to a lot of electronically generated music so I may miss a whole universe, but to me the target of output to 20Hz is quite adequate.

Jan Didden

If my loudspeakers have
-6dB at 40 Hz and -6dB at 15.000 Hz
I dont think I will miss much.

you may argue I will have a bad sound system
because you think it should be
-3dB at 20 Hz and -3dB at 20.000 Hz
I dont think so, at all

The following may be useful :
In an AES paper, "Subwoofer performance for accurate reproduction of music", Fielder and Benjamin mention some Cd records having a lot of extreme bass information, with audible components below 32 Hz. Here, a short extract :
Tchaïskowsky "1812 ouverture" Telarc
Dupré "Symphony in G Minor" Telarc
Hindemith "Organ sonata #1" Argo
Strauss "Also sprach Zarathoustra" Telarc
Bach "Kyrye, Goot heiliger Geist" Telarc
Saint Saëns "Symphony #3" Telarc
Williams "Star wars theme" Telarc
Bach "Toccata and fugue in D minor" Telarc
Bill Cobham "Warning" GRP
For some listening tests, Fielder and Benjamin use the Hindemith sonata. Probably due to an insufficient study of this paper, I have not been able to get a precise conclusion on what is the exact level of the recorded material at the sub-frequencies compared to their average level.

I am very interested by this thread because I am looking for data of the level distribution with frequencies in records, either on very special cases as above or averages made on many records. These data can be of great help to determine the requirements in the design of subs as well as whole loudspeakers in accordance with the wanted maximal levels.